MARIN’S MILES of open space trails is one of the benefits of living here. Nature is at our doorstep.

Well, not for everyone. For many people, they still have to drive and park to reach a trailhead.

That’s what gets some residents who live near popular access points steamed.

For example, some residents who live on San Rafael’s Ridgewood Drive near a trailhead to the Terra Linda/Sleepy Hollow Divide open space are fed up with the traffic and parking mess created by people seeking to run, ride or hike on the popular open space trails.

Their complaints likely resonate with others who live near popular trailheads. Those complaints are understandable.

Finding solutions could come from Marin voters’ recent approval of the Measure A parks and open space tax, which should provide the county Open Space District with the money needed to hire more rangers to address such complaints.

One of the key arguments for passage of Measure A was that the open space district can’t afford the number of rangers needed to adequately cover the 18,500 acres of public open land. Voters’ approval of Measure A should help solve that problem, enabling the county to do a better job of responding to residents’ complaints.

After all, one county open space chief said the district gets similar complaints “throughout the county.”

That shouldn’t be so much a summation, but reason for action.

Ridgewood residents say problems with parking, litter, dog owners not cleaning up after their pets and noisy late-night parties have been getting worse.

It’s the worst that Ingeborg and Horst Mueller have ever seen in the 41 years they have lived in their “dream house” they built on Ridgewood.

Some neighbors share their complaints and frustration that the district has not done anything to improve the situation.

Open space lands are secured to be a public benefit for the greater good. But that doesn’t mean the few people who live near the trailheads have to have their enjoyment of their property rolled over in the process.

Users of county open lands need to be respectful of nature and neighbors. When that doesn’t happen, authorities need to step in with better patrol, enforcement and signage.

The county’s task is not to reduce access. Ridgewood and other roads near trailheads are public streets, along which people are entitled to park. Limiting parking, as some Ridgewood neighbors suggest, only pushes those problems to other areas. That parking physics has been played out across the county.

Hiring more rangers and putting up signs that remind users they should be good neighbors, from parking their cars to picking up after themselves and their pets, may help resolve neighbors’ frustration.

Solving this problem shouldn’t really require more signs and citations, but some people don’t get the point without them.